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April 22, 2024 11 mins

So many small business owners make the mistake of misdiagnosing business issues due to focusing on the wrong symptoms. Today I'm sharing how I pinpoint the symptoms of problems in my business with tools and data. We talk about the use of analytical tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Hotjar to collect meaningful data on website traffic, user behavior, and email marketing effectiveness. We also discuss how our email marketing stats and post-sale feedback can help. Next, we examine common hurdles at various sales funnel stages—from awareness to action—highlighting problems like insufficient traffic, poor traffic quality, weak brand messaging, and technical issues. Using our data at different points through the stages of the customer journey makes it easier for us to make effective decisions in our business and close more sales. 


00:00 Introduction: The Common Mistakes of Small Business Owners
00:27 Identifying the Real Problems Behind Business Symptoms
01:23 Harnessing Data to Diagnose Business Issues
01:44 Essential Tools for Gathering Business Insights
02:07 Deep Dive into Analytics and User Behavior
03:36 Leveraging Email Metrics for Business Growth
04:49 Utilizing Customer Feedback for Strategic Adjustments
05:56 Navigating the Sales Funnel: Common Problems and Solutions
10:35 Conclusion: Making Informed Decisions with Accurate Data

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kate (2) (00:00):
One of the biggest mistakes that I see small
business owners make isdiagnosing problems in their
business by looking at the wrongsymptoms.
Hi, I'm Kate with dear Katebrand strategy.
I've been a small business ownernow for about 13 years, and I
love helping other smallbusiness owners grow through
their business journey.
By sharing the mistakes thatI've made And helping you bypass
some of that messy middle.
Today, we're going to be talkingabout finding the right data and

(00:21):
the symptoms of problems in yourbusiness and how we can more
accurately diagnose what's goingon so we can fix it better.
The most common example I see ofthis problem is in like Facebook
groups or whatever.
When someone's raised theirprices.
And then all of a sudden theyfeel like they're not getting
inquiries.
They're not getting sales and tothem, the thing that's changed
is their pricing.
So they automatically assumethat, oh, my prices are now too

(00:41):
high.
I can't book clients at thisprice.
I have to do something.
I have to bring my pricing backdown, but they're really not
seeing the full big picture ofwhat might be happening.
It really could be a whole hostof issues that are happening
though, as you've increased yourpricing that are causing this
lack of inquiries.
For example, It could be thatyou're still targeting the lower
budget clients and you need tospeak more to the people that
have the money to spend withyou.

(01:03):
It could be that you haveincreased the value of what you
offer.
You've increased the price ofit, but you haven't increased
your explanation of what it isthat you offer.
It could be that people are noteven seeing that pricing page,
that you're not having enoughtraffic or eyeballs on your site
to even get to that pricingpage.
So it's not the price, that'sthe problem.
It's more of a traffic andvisibility problem.

(01:23):
So today we're going to talkabout a few ways that we can
conquer this.
It's really important to havethe tools and metrics in place
so we can get an accuratepicture of what's going on in
our business and our marketingday to day And what the overall
big picture is.
We need to know how people areactually interacting with our
business as well.
let's talk about a few of theways that I gather data, what I
look at on the backend of mybusiness.
And how that helps me gaugewhat's working and what needs to

(01:44):
be tweaked.
First step, I would recommendinstalling Google analytics and
Google search console.
These are tools from Google thatwill make it easier for you to
see which pages are beingvisited on your site.
how many visitors you're gettingto your website?
What search terms are drivingpeople to your website?
These help you to know how manyeyeballs are actually seeing
your work and what you can do toincrease that traffic number.

(02:04):
What SEO things are working andwhat you need to maybe double
down on.
The second tool that I recommendis Hotjar.
This is a really cool piece ofsoftware that you can install.
there is a free version.
If you're a show at user, you'llgrab a piece of code and you'll
pop it into your advancedsettings Under custom head HTML
on every page of your website.
With this piece of code Hotjarwill be able to track how people

(02:25):
are interacting with yourwebsite.
It will give you screenrecordings of exactly what
people are clicking, wherethey're scrolling, how they're
coming in.
What sources referring trafficto your site?
All of that juicy detail, plusyou'll get like a real, listic
live version of how that'shappening.
I love to see how people arescrolling, what they're reading
and you can watch like people'smouse move.

(02:46):
You can see what they'reclicking.
You can see how people get fromone page to the next, and then
ultimately where you're losingthem to.
You can also get heatmaps withthis tool.
Those are more of a snapshot.
It gives you basically a fullpage screenshot of your page,
and it shows you how far down apage.
Most people are clicking.
It's giving you averages.
So, um, like say 10 people havevisited your site in the last 30

(03:07):
days, it'll show you on averagehow far those people have made
it down the page, and it'll showyou where the most people are
clicking on, on that page aswell.
It's a really great tool to justget like a visual reference of
how people are interacting withyour website.
I do recommend that in additionto the Google tools, um, because
like search console really showsyou.

(03:27):
What search terms are drivingtraffic to your site.
How many people are seeing yoursite as an impression in search
results, and then how manypeople are clicking to your site
from those search terms?
The next piece of data that I'mgoing to look at is going to be
email statistics.
I'm going to look at how manypeople are coming into my list
every week, every day.
Which of my opt-ins are maybedriving people.

(03:47):
I have a few different leadmagnet options for people.
And I want to see which ones areperforming the best.
And then From that I can look atthe email sequences that I have
for each opt-in and kind of geta feel for how people are
interacting.
I also like to look at mystatistics on my weekly
broadcast newsletter type emailsand see.
How many people are clicking.
Which people are clicking.

(04:08):
I like to look kind of furtherback at the data on that.
Like if they signed up for mywebsite checklist opt in, and
then they clicked on the linkfor this thing or.
If they signed up for the reportcard and then they seem to be
more interested in my templates,whatever it may be.
It helps me kind of judge.
Which lead magnets to go towhich people, and get a feel for
how people are consuming mycontent and interacting with it.

(04:30):
It also gives me a good idea oflike maybe my lead magnet is not
targeting the right person.
Or maybe the content that I'mputting out leading to that lead
magnet is not connecting withthe lead magnet if perhaps like
people are landing on thatlanding page.
And then not opting in for thatlead magnet.
Those are good ways to kind oflook at the different pieces of
things.
The last thing that I'm going tolook at is my real customer

(04:51):
feedback.
Once I've gotten an inquiry.
I want to look at what is thatthey're reaching out to me for.
I want to read through thatinquiry and be clear on what it
was that attracted them to me.
And that helps me know how tolike, put more of that out into
the world to get those people.
Um, I also ask on my inquiryform, how did you find me?
So I know which marketingchannels are really working.

(05:12):
And where people are looking forservices like mine.
This also follows through withour post-purchase, like after
the sale, after the service hasbeen completed.
I like to send out a surveyeither.
Individually to clients, or oncea year, as a whole to all of my
clients to get feedback on whatI'm doing, right.
What they would like to seedifferent, what drew them to me
in the first place.
All of those little pieces ofinformation helped me know where

(05:34):
to go going forward.
If it was a client that I reallyloved working with, I want more
feedback from them because Iwant more people like them.
I want to know what attractedthem, how to get more people
just like them into my doors sothat I can continue to work with
those great people.
When we have all of this data,we can get a more accurate
picture of what's going on.
We also want to look at thisdata through the different
lenses of where people are intheir customer journey.

(05:56):
Let's talk about some commonproblems that happen throughout
a sales funnel.
First, we're going to talk aboutthe awareness stage.
Next is the interest stage, thedesire stage, and then the
action stage.
In that awareness stage it'sgoing to come down to three
problems.
First is going to be not enoughtraffic.
You're not getting enougheyeballs on your site to make
any kind of movement.
There's not enough people seeingyour offer to start converting.

(06:17):
You have to have a certainnumber of eyeballs before it
even hits the right people.
So Making sure that you'regetting enough traffic to your
offers.
The second one is going to bethe quality of your traffic.
So if you have eyeballs coming,but they're not the right
people, you are not going to getthe sales there either.
For example, if you are drivinga lot of traffic to your newborn
photography page and you do postnewborn photography, but all of

(06:40):
the people that are coming to itare really specifically wanting
that lifestyle.
Documentary look, you're goingto have a disconnect between
who's coming to the page and whothe offer is for.
So making sure that you'rereally clear on in your
marketing efforts and gettingthe right people to that page,
Which goes to the third one,which is weak brand messaging.
So we're getting people to thepage.
We want to make sure that themessage is clear.

(07:02):
We want to make sure that ouroffer and the people coming to
it align, And that we'reconveying our value.
If we're not conveying the valueof our offers, people are going
to drop off a lot quicker.
Next up is the interest stage.
So in this stage, some of theproblems could be a lack of
engaging content.
We've got people here, we canget them to kind of see our
value.
We've got the right people onour page, But there's no content
to keep them flowing through.

(07:23):
There's not enough there to backup our credibility and build.
That kind of relationshipbetween the viewer and our
business.
In this stage, another problemcan be a lack of follow-up or
poor follow-up.
at this stage, they've expressedsome interest in your business.
They're inquiring and maybe theresponse that you're giving
them, the inquiry response,isn't answering all their

(07:43):
questions.
Isn't timely enough.
Um, or.
They need a little nudge postthat first inquiry email.
So if they are inquiring, you'resending them an inquiry response
and you're not following upagain to say, Hey, did you get
my email?
Um, that could be another placewhere you're losing people.
Another thing that can behappening in this stage is tech
issues.

(08:03):
So it could be something liketheir emails are landing in your
spam.
Your emails are landing in theirspam.
Or you don't have systems inplace to make sure that they're
getting through the right funneland getting the information that
they need.
When we come to the decisionphase, it can be a couple of
different things here as well.
Perhaps there's just not enoughinformation on the product or
service.
Maybe you've responded to aninquiry email, and they're not
getting all of the data thatthey need to make that decision,

(08:25):
or perhaps your sales page hasjust not enough detail for them
to get to that final.
Yes.
It could also be that there's alack of social proof.
If you don't have testimonialsor reviews, it can be harder to
build that trust with people.
The third thing here under thedecision stage is going to be
your competitive advantage ordisadvantages your competitors
disadvantages.
Here we want to make sure thatwe're explaining how our offer

(08:48):
differs from our competitors.
And maybe things that they'vetried in the past before, a lot
of times people are coming toyou because what they've tried
previously, hasn't worked and weneed to acknowledge that that is
a real circumstance.
And the final stage, the actionstage, a few things that are
stopping people from buying arehidden costs.
So maybe there's a shipping feeor taxes that they didn't

(09:08):
realize were going to happen.
There could be, a lack ofpayment options.
So maybe they need a paymentplan or they need to use PayPal
or, um, a credit card or acheck.
And those are not things thatyou've thought to offer.
Uh, those are ways that we arestopping people from buying as
well.
Another thing that I've comeacross in my own buying journey
as a customer.

(09:28):
Is not being able to use acredit card that's already like
stored on my phone or whatever,and I have to get up and get my
wallet.
And then I ended up not buyingbecause it wasn't an easy
process for me.
So anything that can make thatcheckout process less complex,
easier.
Is a huge benefit to you as abusiness owner And something
that we often maybe overlook.
It's a great idea to run throughyour own checkout process

(09:51):
multiple times and see how itworks.
I would also recommend.
Um, again, if you're usingHotjar you can look and see like
people are getting to thatcheckout page, but then they're
not buying.
You can kind of see what'sstopping them from buying their
two.
No across all of the stages,there are some things that can
happen.
It can be inconsistentcommunication, or like a lack of

(10:11):
clear message that follows fromthat interest to buying stage.
We want to make sure that ourvoice and our message are clear
across all of those channels.
it makes it easier for people tobuy and it builds that trust.
The other thing that can happenthroughout is that, uh,
responsiveness making sure thatyou're responding to inquiries
quickly responding to DMS andall of those things as well.
Those things will help you getpeople through that sales funnel

(10:33):
more effectively.
So with all of those data pointsthat we've installed and that
we're looking at regularly, Weshould be able to kind of
diagnose these problems.
Throughout our sales funnel moreclearly.
And when we have all of thatdata to back up our decisions.
It makes it easier to makedecisions.
It also makes our decisions moreeffective.
I hope this has been helpful inletting you see how you can
diagnose some of those problemsin your small business, by

(10:55):
looking at the actual symptomsand not just kind of what we
think might be happening, whatwe've changed.
Um, and getting that real rawdata and really diagnosing what
those problems are.
Thanks so much for listening tothis episode of how you pictured
it.
If you found this episode to behelpful, I would love for you to
share it with a friend, take ascreenshot of the podcast and
share it to your Instagramstories.
Tag me at dear Kate brandstrategy.

(11:16):
I'd love to hear your thoughtsas always.
You can support the podcast forfree by subscribing and leaving
a review in whatever podcastplayer you're listening in.
Thanks so much for being here.
I can't wait to talk to youagain next week.
Have a great day.
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